The Great Big Book of Families

Overview

The Great Big Book of Families is Mary Hoffman and Ros Asquith's broad survey of family structures and family life. The local collection record identifies a girl with two mothers and a boy with two fathers among the children pictured, and notes an interracial two-father couple in the visual field. Metadata and review sources describe the book as a wide-ranging account of family forms, homes, schools, work, holidays, food, feelings, and change. Its value for the collection is taxonomic: it names the older convention of a narrow book-family model and then opens a large social field. Same-sex-parent families are therefore visible as part of an inclusive social map, alongside race, class, household, and everyday-life differences.^[1][2][3][6]

A Family Survey Book

The book works by accumulation rather than plot. Library and publisher metadata describe a sequence of illustrated family types and family-life domains, from household members to schools, jobs, vacations, food, and feelings. That survey form lets the item carry more than a single representation claim. It documents how a 2011 trade picture book could organize many forms of social difference for children, using short captions and busy visual scenes to make comparison part of the reading experience.^[2][3][8]

Updating Book-Family Conventions

The local catalog records the book's opening contrast between older book families and real families in many shapes and sizes. That premise gives the object a self-conscious place in the collection. It does not only add two-mom and two-dad households to a picture-book page; it points to the convention being revised. Kirkus and Publishers Weekly reception sources support this reading by treating the title as an expansive, contemporary family book rather than a narrow special-topic item.^[1][6][7]

Two Mothers And Two Fathers

The local record identifies both a two-mother child and a two-father child in the book's visual field. That evidence supports a restrained claim: same-sex-parent families are included among many family forms. The broad format matters because it avoids isolating LGBTQ families as a lesson apart from everyone else. Instead, the title places them inside a social taxonomy where children may compare household structure, daily routines, work, food, and feeling across many kinds of families.^[1][2][3]

Race And Visual Range

The collection record also notes a boy with two dads, one Caucasian and one African American. That local visual description makes the item relevant to mixed-race representation as well as LGBTQ-family history. Because the exact caption and page location remain object details, the record keeps the claim general and source-grounded. The point is not to make the book a race-specific title, but to show how Asquith's visual enumeration allows family structure and racial difference to appear in the same field.^[1][11][6]

Timeline

1. 2010Library control numberThe Library of Congress control number was assigned for the US edition.^[4]
2. 2011US editionOpen Library and PRH metadata place the Dial Books for Young Readers edition in 2011.^[2][3]
3. 2011Collection yearThe local collection record also uses 2011.^[1]
4. 2011Trade reviewsKirkus and Publishers Weekly preserve review context for the title.^[6][7]
5. 2014/2015Alternate edition trailQuarto and PRH image metadata preserve a later or alternate edition trail.^[9][13]
6. 2020sCreator profilesPublisher and creator sites keep Hoffman and Asquith's roles visible in public records.^[10][11]
7. 2026-06-07Cover verificationThe PRH US cover candidate was technically verified for this synthesis wave.^[12]

Edition Notes

Selected edition evidence for the collection-facing record.

Citation

The Great Big Book of Families. Mary Hoffman; illustrated by Ros Asquith. Dial Books for Young Readers, 2011. Tarpey-Schwed LGBT Families Children's Book Special Collection, Mechanics' Institute. Collection ID: KB-127.

Sources

Cover image from Penguin Random House.

1. Local collection catalog record for The Great Big Book of Families · catalog
2. Open Library ISBN metadata for The Great Big Book of Families · library
3. Penguin Random House page for The Great Big Book of Families · publisher
4. Library of Congress record for The Great Big Book of Families · library
5. Library of Congress MARCXML for The Great Big Book of Families · library
6. Kirkus review of The Great Big Book of Families · review
7. Publishers Weekly review of The Great Big Book of Families · review
8. BookTrust record for The Great Big Book of Families · book_organization
9. Quarto page for an alternate Great Big Book of Families edition · publisher
10. Penguin Random House author page for Mary Hoffman · creator
11. Ros Asquith creator site · creator
12. Penguin Random House US cover image for The Great Big Book of Families · image
13. Penguin Random House alternate cover image for The Great Big Book of Families · image